


Like A Plant?

by seekeronthepath



Series: Coming Out Stories [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ace problems, Asexual Derek Hale, Asexuality, Coming Out, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Dubcon, Pre-Canon, Sexuality Crisis, in slow motion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekeronthepath/pseuds/seekeronthepath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek knew he wasn’t normal, but he didn’t really know why, or how to fix it. So he covered it up, and pretended to be normal as best he could, for a long time. He did figure it out eventually.</p><p>This can stand alone, but is intended as a prequel to "Ineffable You".</p><p>For details on the dub-con and underage, see the endnotes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Plant?

“I’m asexual.”

“What the hell is that?”

\-----

Derek didn’t get it – the whole sex, hotness, thing. He’d _never_ got it, and the older he got, the weirder he felt about it. He got boners sometimes, but it was all kind of…physiological, and it went away pretty fast. Sometimes porn was interesting, in a detached kind of way, but not _that_ much. And the whole idea of sex…he’d never exactly looked at a girl and thought, “wow, I want to put parts of me inside of parts of her. That would be amazing!”

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“That’s not a real word.”

\-----

It’s not like he could miss what the other guys were thinking, even if they’d ever shut up about it. The school reeked of it. Derek knew he wasn’t normal, but he didn’t really know why, or how to fix it. So he covered it up, and pretended to be normal as best he could, because no one ever seemed to notice, and then there was Paige. He thought, maybe, that this was what they’d been talking about – the way he lit up when he saw her, the way his heart skipped a beat when he thought of her, the way his palms got sweaty when he kissed her – but he knew it wasn’t quite right. Then she died, and he didn’t want to think about how he felt about her any more.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“Like a plant?”

\-----

His family noticed he was missing something. He started getting worried looks when he was fourteen or so, edging out of the age range for a “late bloomer”. It got to the point that his mother looked _relieved_ the first time he came home smelling of sex. He was sixteen at the time. It wasn’t that he’d thought Kate was sexy; he’d thought she was amazing. Beautiful, confident, clever – and clearly considered desirable by normal people – she made him feel special when she singled him out. And if sex was a little gross in concept, it was something _normal_ people did, and it felt good, and Kate obviously liked it a lot. Derek didn’t want to let her down.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“Did something happen to you?”

\-----

After Kate, the idea of sex made him want to throw up. Laura never asked, but she must have figured _something_ out, because she never said anything about his lack of arousal either. Honestly, “sex” and “Kate” were so closely tied in his mind that he almost forgot about how he’d felt before. They kept on the move for almost a year, stopping for a few weeks here, a few weeks there, before they felt secure enough to settle in New York. There really wasn’t _time_ to think about it.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“There are pills for that, you know.”

\-----

Once they got to New York, Laura got in touch with the family lawyer and got access to her trust fund so she could go to college. She studied part time and worked part time at two different jobs, and Derek worked one job and studied for his GED.  Laura began to make friends, and they all met Derek sooner or later. It was different, hanging out with girls. They talked about sex too, but they also talked _not_ about sex a whole lot more. They talked about relationships, good and bad ones, and a whole lot of things that had nothing to do with guys. Derek didn’t talk, but he listened. They liked him, for the most part. They found him unthreatening.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“Maybe you’re looking at the wrong people.”

\-----

Derek stayed with Laura when he started college. They both needed each other too much to be apart, but Derek was also privately glad to have avoided the dorms. He _liked_ not having to lie about his sex life. He took courses in general subjects – arts and social sciences, mostly – and sometimes girls heavily outnumbered the boys in his tutorials, but he didn’t mind. In his second semester, he fell in like with one of them. It terrified him, so he didn’t do anything about it. In sophomore year he fell in like with one of the _guys_ in his tutorial, which didn’t terrify him, but did open up whole new vistas of confusion.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“Do you think you could be gay?”

\-----

He thought about talking to Laura about it. But while they talked about a lot of things, they’d never talked about _this_ , and he kind of didn’t want to. Instead he went to a GSA meet-up. But the thing was…Derek wasn’t gay. Derek was attracted to guys in exactly the same way he was attracted to girls: never, but with occasional crushes. So “gay”, or even “bisexual”, just felt like another way to pretend to be normal. He kept going anyway. At least the GSA people knew what it was like not to feel normal.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“You just haven’t had good sex yet.”

\-----

Eventually, he asked a guy he liked on a date. It was nice, if a little awkward, and if the kiss at the end was a bit weird, it didn’t bring up and bad memories the way Derek had thought it might, so he agreed to a second date. That wasn’t as nice, and the kissing had enough groping involved to make Derek uncomfortable, but he figured there was always going to be an adjustment period and he genuinely did like the guy, so he agreed to a third date. _That_ was a disaster. The guy asked Derek up for “coffee” after, which Derek didn’t realise meant “fucking” until he was reaching for the button on Derek’s pants. When Derek said no, the guy got pissed and accused Derek of “leading him on”. There was yelling, Derek left in a fairly decisive way, and when he got home Laura took one look at him and announced she’d “break the bastard’s fucking face”.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“No-one’s going to want to be with you if you don’t put out.”

\-----

Derek felt weird about dating for a while after that, but eventually he asked out Cassie, a pansexual girl from the GSA. She seemed quite happy to take things slow, but pretty soon Derek started to feel guilty and started to fall back into his old habits of pretending. “Look,” she said eventually, “I don’t know _why_ this is making you uncomfortable, but I can tell that it _is_ , Derek. Could you please stop pushing yourself?” She was nice about it, but she wasn’t attached enough to deal with Derek’s many issues, and they began to drift apart not long after. “I’m sorry, Derek,” she said when they finally gave up. “I’m just not cut out for an asexual relationship.”

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“I don’t understand.”

\-----

He hadn’t heard the phrase “asexual relationship” before, so he looked it up. Then he looked up “asexuality” and a lot of things made a lot more sense. He sat on the idea for a while before he told anyone, processing. It was no small thing, to discover that his own abnormalities were shared by hundreds of thousands of others, enough that they were, in many ways, a “type”, of normal. He found it extremely frustrating that ace erasure was so bad that he’d been going to GSA meetings for two years and never heard of it. Eventually he left his browser open on a page about a sex-repulsed biromantic asexual, gave Laura his laptop, said “This is me,” and walked away.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“Really? You?”

\-----

Things got a lot easier. Derek never did the pride thing: he and Laura knew, and that was enough. He didn’t mind people knowing, but he didn’t have any close friends to tell. He stopped pretending, and stopped compromising. He told people he liked on the second or third date – they usually broke up with him either straight away or soon after. He tried not to let it bother him too much. After all, he’d always have Laura. Then he didn’t have Laura anymore which was…awful. Things were terrible for a while, then slightly better, then a lot worse, and then, gradually, they became surprisingly okay. That was when he told Stiles.

\-----

“I’m asexual.”

“…that explains a lot.”

\-----

It all went really well after that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written all in one go, on physical paper because my computer was down, and typed up the next day. It doesn't reflect my own experiences, but I hope I was able to reflect the experiences of others.
> 
> Dubcon and underage things: mentions of Derek having sex with Kate Argent when he is sixteen (and as everyone knows, she was an adult, and formed their relationship under false pretenses). Derek agrees to sex because she wants it and is trying to be "normal". He enjoys it, and is not distressed. At a later date, he misinterprets the flirtation of a guy he is dating, and the guy attempts to unbutton Derek's pants. Derek refuses, and leaves, although the guy says he is "leading him on". In a different relationship, Derek tries to push himself to have sex when he doesn't want to, but his partner stops him.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to your comments!


End file.
